"These are your dreams, every night you gain more and more. More then you could ever believe, pet."

His hands guided me throughout the many dreams (history tests and death all rolled into one), shining pictures that filled my head night after night.

But I didn't see any of them, my eyes tried with sleep we're only on him (pet, love, puppet, lover, and little girl) wide and open just for him, the dead and buried.

I was afraid, afraid that if I dared to lay one single finger on him he would turn to ash and slip through my fingers. He seemed the same, eyes blue and hair dyed blond, same only Spike coat that I'd grown not to hate.

I missed him so very much missed him like a second heart I never though I had or needed.

I wish he knew that, wish the words (I love you; no you don't) I had spoken years ago had come true with a smile of realization one night with a stake in hand and a curtain vampire in mind.

"Cover your eyes, Spiky."

"And why would I do that, Buffy? Your dreams are just so juicy, now if I could only find one with me in it."

Smirk, smirk crooked and just for me, that smirk that long ago brought tears to these now dry eyes, dry from too many tears and too many long days without him.

"Cover them, or face blindness."

My voice wasn't coated in venom with a hint of playfulness, it was soft and weak something I had become only around him and the even mention his name, (Buffy we need to talk about this, talk until we all cry and hug,).

I thought he would laugh it off, chuckle at the weak little slayer and soon I would be pulled along to dream after dream, but he was Spike and with him you never know.

"What's wrong Buffy? You seem, unlike yourself. Something happen, who died?"

I felt a laugh bubbling up, but instead came tears, a whole lot of tears.

"Y-You died, Spike. You died."

He pulled me into him, he wasn't turning to ash, wasn't going up in flames with my hand holding on skin burning away in each little second, no he was the same old Spike, cold and here.

But I wasn't the same old me, carefree Buffy, lip-gloss and shopping bags, I was the depressed Buffy, demons and weapons.

Something else was new too; I meant the three words that passed my lips at the end of the world and now they we're all that I could think of and say.

"I love you."

His body grew stiff, shuddering at the three words that he wanted to hear for so long.

"No you don't."

"Yes I do."

"I lo-"

"Buffy wake up, wake up!"

"NO! Please God NO!"

The burning light of the real world (burning away his face from my mind) filled me up with dread as his face slipped away once again.

"S-Spike, you're real!!"

He was there, in flesh and cold blood, smiling lips and sleepy eyes. I held him to me afraid that he would be gone just as fast as he came.

"Dreams are very strange things, pet."